Texturing skin

[mourning dove]

Well, I've never done this kind of thing before. But now that I've started and it's actually turning out okay, I want to make it perfect.



I know I need to add some texture and flaw to the skin, but I'm not sure how... Photoshop painters who've dealt with this before, please give me some advice!  

[Koiyuki]

Hmm...what kind of effects are you going for?  

[SeleneMoonbow]

I'm not sure if you have Painter, but if you do have access to it, I would suggest playing around with the sponges. If not, there are of course sponge brushes in Photoshop, or you can download some or even make your own.
I think the portrait is coming along very well.  

[Koiyuki]

SeleneMoonbow

I'm not sure if you have Painter, but if you do have access to it, I would suggest playing around with the sponges. If not, there are of course sponge brushes in Photoshop, or you can download some or even make your own.
I think the portrait is coming along very well.

Err...like, whats a sponge?  

[mourning dove]

Koiyuki

Hmm...what kind of effects are you going for?

I just want it to look a little more natural...  

[Koiyuki]

Well if you want it to look like real human skin, the quickest way would be to take a picture from the net, upload it to Photoshop, or whatever you use, and use the Color dropper to pick out the colors you need.

And you also might wanna try this site  

[rogue_designer]

I'm usually working with photo's so this may apply more to that realm - but I find that adding a layer of noise on top of the paint - especially random gaussian monochrome noise, with a low opacity, will mimic film grain, and help even out over retouched areas. That combined with some multiply brush effects might help minimize the unnaturalness of the painted skin.  

[Catani]

well i dunno about texturing sweatdrop
but i think there are some other things that would make the pic more realistic:
1. skin color - too pinkish imho
2. complementary colors for the shading
3. more contrast - deeper shades and lighter bright spots
4.overall face anatomy - for ex. no cheek bones shade, ...

but i must say the collors are done very nice and smooth... 3nodding